Financial institutions need to recognize that change is necessary for how they tackle managing liquidity and interest rate risks. Low interest rates lasted years, resulting in complacency among financial institutions regarding deposit balance behavior. Then, during the past two rising rate cycles, deposit balances grew, coupled with an unusual systemic deposit inflow from 20202021 as a result of COVID-19 pandemic-related government fiscal stimulus. But those early 2023 bank failures proved that depository behavior is changing. One of the more important lessons surrounded concentration risk. Prior, deposits were considered one of the safest products in the liability structure of a bank. But, as the industry quickly learned, some types of depositors are more sensitive than others. Large concentrations of a particular type of client create a higher risk of deposit flight, as was the case with SVB. As a result, banks are needing to diversify their funding basis. An Agile ALM Framework The ALM function covers a prudential component and an optimization role within the limits of compliance. Prudential meaning the management of all possible risks and rules and regulations, with optimization covering the management of funding costs, generating results on balance sheet position. But the industry is riddled with change: business cycles becoming aggressive, global ecosystems and third-party risks becoming more complex, regulations rapidly changing, more stringent compliance enforcement — financial institutions are going to be forced to adopt an agile ALM framework with a broader perspective scoping out broad objectives of the bank’s asset/liability portfolio, as dictated by the Board in order to address new situations where a policy does not yet exist. With the adverse interest rate environments, it has been found that most ALM systems and processes are not providing accurate and explainable outcomes scaled to meet transaction processing requirements. They lack flexibility to support interest rate risk reporting, scenario modeling requirements and “what if” analysis and are unable to scale to account for a bank’s contract and account volume of deposits and loans. There exists a lack of transparency in the underlying calculation logic, resulting in unexplainable and independently unverified data. The Three Pillars It is important for banks to assess the three pillars within an ALM program to include: ALM Information Systems, ALM Organization and ALM Processes. These pillars address the four key components examiners test on: board and senior management oversight policies; procedures and risk limits; management information systems; and internal controls and audit. ALM Information Systems addresses Management Information Systems and information availability, accuracy, adequacy and expediency. Information is the key to ALM strength. ALM organization requires a strong commitment from the board and senior management to integrate basic operations and strategic decision making within risk management. The ALCO decision-making unit monitors market risk levels compared 19
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTg3NDExNQ==